Ascent
or, the Risen and Fallen on the Seventh Floor
by Kirryn Lia Todd
Around lunchtime, all three of us took our leave of Nutmeg's apartment for the time being. The witch saw us off with a sigh.
“There's nothing much else we can do for the moment, except sit around and give ourselves headaches over all these little mysteries. And it's not that I don't enjoy your company, sweet pea – or yours, Master Lanois – but if I'm to be any help, I think I'll have to read up on things I didn't think I'd ever have to touch again...” She looked at her bookshelf with a strange, wry smile.
“I don't mind your company, either, you know.”
“Vaffanculo, demone vecchio.”
And with Nutmeg's Italian hanging in the air like poisoned glass drops, we all left her apartment, lost in thought – or in Killian's case, lost in thought and still slightly dazed. I watched him pinch himself as he disappeared back inside his own apartment, and couldn't help smiling.
At my side, Mephisto chuckled. “That poor boy's head is going to be spinning for the next few hours, at the very least.” He seemed inordinately amused by this.
“Well, that's fair enough,” I argued, letting the demon and myself back into my (our?) apartment. “He just saw a demon materialise in front of his eyes.”
“I seem to recall you saw the same thing, some nights ago?”
“Yes, but I'm...” I remembered my conversation with Killian, the tempests of emotion that swirled around the both of us, and the word 'abnormal' died on my tongue.
“I'm crazy,” I said instead, and grinned widely. Mephisto raised a perfect eyebrow at me, a grin quirking around the corners of his lips.
“I see...and am I correct in surmising that you're taking much more joy in that fact since this morning than you had previously?”
I blushed. “Mm. Maybe?”
“Is this 'maybe' perhaps linked with why you didn't think you were a dancer until extremely recently, if my assumptions are correct?”
“Assumptions, assumptions!” Futile sidetracking. As if anything I did or said would stop Mephisto from figuring out what had me so giddily happy – that is, if he didn't already know. He rules over knowledge...very few things he doesn't know...
“Assumptions indeed,” he smiled at me, partly affectionate and partly teasing, still closer to dangerous than safe. But would he ever be safe? He looked after me, and worried, and dragged me kicking and screaming – literally – from my nightmares, but could I ever consider him 'safe'?
Could I be foolish enough to do so, at all?
"What are you thinking, you of song?" Mephisto asked, that odd smile still hovering about his lips.
“I'm not really...sure..." I shook my head, trying to chase away the strange thoughts and even stranger feelings hovering about me. Safe...unsafe...dangerous. Was there a line between them? What was safe? What was unsafe? Were unsafe and dangerous the same thing, even?
You of song. Elouise here is your song. How bizarre, all of it...
"I'm a song," I murmured, as if the realisation had only just come to me. "You of song..."
Beside me, Mephisto laughed, and took my hands in his own. Still warm, very, very warm, his skin against mine, fingers tangling with mine...
"It all makes me so giddy," I mumbled around my confusion. For some reason, I couldn't make myself meet his gaze. I could feel it there, on my face, but I just couldn't raise my eyes to his. I could feel his gaze, and his smile.
"What does?" His voice was a purr. If it had been any smoother, any deeper, I think my legs would have given way. My heart had leapt into my throat, somehow, and was beating wildly. Still couldn't raise my eyes to meet his.
Unsafe.
Dangerous?
"Everything," I answered, with a wry smile of my own. I flexed my fingers and twined them with the demon's, the way I had with Killian.
Oh, my Killian...
"This. Being a song. Killian writing the song, the song that I am, I mean. Nutmeg being a witch. And you...you being..."
"Mm?"
"You being you," I whispered. Why was I whispering? Where had my voice gone? "You being a demon...you being...you...you..."
"Me," he whispered back, his lips against my ear. I tried and failed to hold back a shiver.
"Are you really here to help me?" I asked in a voice as pale as an evening breeze. "I mean, was that the reason you came here? To help me? When we first met, you said that I might be the one you were looking for. What did that mean?"
Again, that purring chuckle. "Oh, Elouise, Elouise, Elouise. Tell me something."
"Tell...you...?"
"If I said no -- if I said that I merely stumbled upon you by happy accident -- would that change anything?"
"I..." The question unnerved me. Of course it did, didn't it? He was a demon. Assumptions, Elouise, assumptions. Which didn't mean anything to me. Demon, or man, or ghost, or song. Mephisto was Mephisto. So why would that change anything?
"How do I know you're being honest with me?"
“How do you know that anyone is being honest with you, baby child?”
I squirmed beneath his heavy gaze. I still couldn't look into those eyes. I knew they'd be stormy, swirling...with amusement or anger, I'd not be able to tell. But they would be tempest-tinted and wild...unsafe. Forever unsafe.
“Have I give you any reason to believe that I'm lying to you? Or have been lying to you?”
“No!” I shook my head emphatically. He hadn't. He had never...not since the moment that he'd met me, not once had he lied to me. Not even when he was placating me, hauling me head-first out of nightmare worlds and my own engulfing sorrow. I clasped his hands harder, too giddy to register that I might be hurting him, and despite my fear, I forced myself to look into his eyes, hoping that I could communicate my vehemence to him, somehow.
“No, no. I don't...you're not...you're not lying to me!” I gasped the words out, they fell all over each other like autumn leaves in a sudden updraft.
“Are you convincing me, or yourself?” Mephisto asked, with a soft chuckle.
“No, you don't understand, I truly believe – I don't think you'd ever...no, it's just...” Whirlpool thoughts tinted with a need to make him believe me. Without thinking, I let go of his hand and rested my palm against his face the way that I had the other day, desperate for the contact, the communication – did he get it? Could he understand?
“Baby child,” he murmured again, covering my hand with his own and leaning in to my touch, his eyes falling closed like drifting snowflakes. Winter, yes. He was the winter to Killian's summer. I'd never seen snow in my life, nor had any idea how snowflakes fell, but with my skin touching his skin – still so warm – suddenly I knew. For all that fire, he was ice. His horns...ice-cold to the touch...
“Do you understand?” I rasped out of a sandpaper throat.
“I understand,” he replied, his voice as sharp and as soft as snow. “And Elouise?”
“Yes...?”
“Don't think this tender moment gets you off the hook when it comes to telling me why suddenly you consider yourself a dancer.”
I couldn't help myself, I started to laugh. And even though he kept his eyes closed and his hand over mine, Mephisto smiled, too.